Half A Year!

Wasn't it just several months ago when I narrowed an entire house down to 4 boxes and 4 suitcases, left a job I loved and said goodbyes to my friends? Wasn't it only several months ago when Andrea and Heather took me to the airport on an early rainy morning and said our tearful goodbyes and I wondered how I would ever get by without them right by me? Wasn't it only several months ago that I couldn't speak or understand a lick of Spanish?

It was SIX months ago today!! That's half a year!!! Wow! I'm amazed at how far God has brought me. He is teaching me so much! He has brought me through some major valleys of sadness, homesickness, inability to communicate (even the easiest of things), loneliness, and even the wonder if I heard Him wrong about coming here.

The amazing thing about Christ, our Savior, is how patient He is with me. How He is always there ready to show Himself to me. Ready to remind me of my identity and how He provides for me from the littlest ways of just needing a cat to love on for a few to the big things of financial support. He loves to love us and this is one of the things I am learning. He desires us, me, to fall madly be in love with Him. I pray for this daily, though at times it can really hurt as well.

I am blessed by how He has provided for me in friendships, strength to make it through Spanish classes, and an amazing group of like-minded people who are vulnerable about their struggles and who are ever seeking after God. I am also blessed that God has given me a passion for Costa Rica and that I have fallen in love with her people and it feels like home.

I'm still amazed that it's been half a year. It sure doesn't feel like it. I am overwhelmed that Christ has given me such an amazing opportunity in serving Him here. I look forward to where He takes me in the next 6 months. By then I will have just finished language school!

Thank you all for your prayers and financial support that has made this journey possible. Though you are not here physically with me; you are here every step of the way because I wouldn't be if it wasn't for you. Thank you!

A Rainbow Kind of Week

Last week was one of those, not so uncommon this year, strange kind of summer weeks. (All the Ticos agree that this weather is not summer and they aren't sure what has happened to summer.)

Every day seemed to welcome us with a hit of chilliness or even dare I say cold - 60's. The cold was only intensified by the wind. I swore some big tornadic storm was going to start at any moment (at least that's what this type of wind ushers in, in Missouri.) Yet the strangest thing was how it could be raining at times with no clouds for miles! Yes, the saying is true that Costa Rica is a country that it can rain while the sun is completely shinning!

All day, every day last week there was always a form of "pelo de gato". This is a wonderfully descriptive name for this type of rain; translated it means the cat's fur. The uncreative, boring name we have for it is mist. Doesn't pelo de gato decribe it best? Not enough to get you really wet but enough to frizz the hair, especially those of us with curly hair!

The pelo de gato rain ushered in a week of treasured moments for me. All too indescribable and pictures would not even do it justice (though I didn't have my camera on me to even try). The pelo de gato ushered in rainbows and more rainbows because the sun was always shinning at some point ins the day. These rainbows were more like a partial spectrum that grew out of the ground and gently kissed the first layers of clouds and would end. Yet they were so wide.

The colors were the most brilliant colors I have ever seen. Reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, indigos, and violets all danced boldly and distinguishably, then gently faded into it's neighbor as to share in the glory of such a creation. (And yes there is indigo, though they say indigo isn't part of the spectrum anymore, it shined just as brilliantly as the blue and violet that hugged either side of it.)

There was one partial spectrum on Saturday night that was right in front of us. I think I could have reached out and touched it if I wasn't in a taxi. It was so breathtaking. Every day this occurred, I saw one almost every morning and every night. Little promises from God to me that He is taking care of me and has me right where He wants me. (God has used rainbows, throughout my life, as very precious reminders of how He loves me and His promises He has given me in His Word. And how I really needed these reminders last week.)

The most incredible moment of the entire week was on Thursday afternoon. Three ladies and I had just finished up at the Women's Restoration House and walked outside and there shined a full brilliant rainbow. I could see where it began and ended. As we were mesmerized by it, there seemed to appear a second rainbow forming directly under it. Now it wasn't like your normal double rainbow with some space between the two. No, the violet from the first rainbow hugged the red of the second rainbow! We stood there and watched the second rainbow grow along the first until it stretched across the sky.

But God wasn't done with His marvel. Only moments later the violet of the second one began hugging the red of a third rainbow!! Three rainbows, unseparated, showing off God's inconceivable majesty! Three! Together! Now the third only grew halfway to the center but that didn't take away anything. What a marvel! What majesty! What a great God who loves us and cares for us that He gives us such incredible fingerprints of Him. How could I not fall more in love with Him?

If this is what pelo de gato rain does, then I welcome it almost anytime. I hope you will experience a rainbow filled week as well. Maybe it won't literally be a rainbow but that you will see the majesty of God displayed everywhere for you to be unable to deny that He loves you and is taking care of you!